Shield 2019 Pro is transcoding all audio to mp3?

Server Version#: 1.23.4.4712
Player Version#: Latest

Does anyone know what’s going on and how to fix it? After the last few updates to beta PMS, almost all audio is being transcoded to mp3 on my nvidia shield pro 2019. Even AAC stereo is getting transcoded to MP3 stereo. FLAC stereo as well. Is there a way to fix it?

My server logs show:

Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.341 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Found session GUID of e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android in session start.
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.355 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Android
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.355 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/1504?includeBandwidths=1&offset=-1&X-Plex-Inc
omplete-Segments=1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.355 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Auth: authenticated user 1 as jarajara
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Selecting best audio stream for part ID 25719 (autoselect: 0 language: en)
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] We're going to try to auto-select a subtitle.
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Selected a foreign audio track: jpn
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Subtitles: Found a candidate subtitle language [eng] for a foreign film
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.359 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Audio Stream: 94660, Subtitle Stream: 94662
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Scaled up video bitrate to 56647Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mkv
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: analyzing media item 21439
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: Direct Play is disabled
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: selected subtitle cannot be converted to a compatible format, burning into vid
eo stream
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: avoiding video remux due to burned subtitle stream
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Scaled up video bitrate to 56647Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec flac when profile only allows mp3
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Akudama Drive - S1 E5 - DEAD MAN WALKING: selected media 0 / 21439
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Adding session 0x7fe32933bc68:e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android which is using 59751kbps of WAN bandwidth.  Used is now 59751kbps
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Adding session 0x7fe32933bc68:e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android which is using transcoder slot.  Used slots is now 1
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Added session 0x7fe32933bc68:e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.360 [0x7fe328e54b38] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=1504 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=21439 part=(id=25719 decision=transcode container=mkv protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=94659 decision=transcode bitrate=56647 encoder=libx264 width=1920 height=1080) Audio=(id=94660 decision=transcode bitrate=258 encoder=libmp3lame channels=2 rate=48000) Subtitle=(id=94662 decision=burn languageCode=eng location=embedded))))
Jul 03, 2021 23:16:32.361 [0x7fe329a08b38] DEBUG - Completed: [172.18.0.13:45102] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?advancedSubtitles=text&audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=0&directPlay=0&directStream=1&directStreamAudio=1&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=wan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=209664&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F1504&protocol=*&session=e47db1585cbd5b2f-com-plexapp-android&subtitles=burn&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (8 live) GZIP 20ms 2233 bytes

Which seems really weird, as I know the shield can direct play FLAC and it has done so in the past. So is something messed up w/ the server profiles?

Check your shield system settings for audio make sure on auto/pass through?

Check your pms dashboard make sure the shield is showing a local connection and not remote?

Yep I checked all my shield settings, and tried many things. Including audio passthrough set to HDMI and to disabled.

It appears this is an issue with the PMS Android profile. Something must have changed to it in the beta release channel, because I’m pretty sure it used to play FLAC/AAC audio streams directly even if it had to burn in subs. Or maybe there used to be an nvidia shield profile that is now removed? As of 1.23.4.4712 this is what the default android profile looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Android">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="streaming" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="static" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" id="StereoMusicTranscodeProfile" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <MusicProfile container="ogg" codec="vorbis" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,bmp,png" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <ContainerProfiles>
    <VideoContainer name="mp4">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="part.optimizedForStreaming" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoContainer>
  </ContainerProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
        <NotMatch name="video.anamorphic" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="video.profile" list="baseline|main|high" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

So can see pretty clearly if it transcodes (like the case with ASS subtitles), it always transcodes to mp3. This wasn’t the case 3 months ago or so, so I’m not sure why plex made this change. Maybe for compatibility issues with older devices? Or like I said, was the shield profile removed? I don’t have an older version to see.

Anyways, seems like I have to use a custom profile to make my shield work properly. I found A customized Plex profile for the Nvidia Shield, which goes in ./Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Profiles/ · GitHub and will give that a shot.

No luck with that custom profile. It’s still forcing transcoded audio to mp3 no matter what I seem to set in the profile. So not sure what’s going on.

I think I’m having the same issue. Everything worked fine before the last shield update (or last plex client update - can’t tell which update broke it) - but now everything is wanting to transcode. I’m running my plex server locally on the shield 2019 pro, and running the client alongside it, and it still wants to transcode all the audio. My playback shows that I’m connected to the server locally, but the playback info states “Resolution or bitrate exceeds maximum allowed.” I have local playback set to Original. So anyways, I don’t think I’m exceeding either the resolution or bitrate for local playback, but it still wants to transcode.

**Update… well, I don’t know what fixed it, but direct play is working now. I set the remote streaming quality to Maximum, and it started direct play. For some reason, it was showing my local bandwidth as being 2Mbps, which is stupid because my server and client are on the same device, so I don’t know why it was doing that. I can only guess that this “mis-identification” of the network bandwidth (even though it is a local connection to itself) is what was causing it to transcode. Not sure if I actually fixed anything, or just band-aided it.

Direct play all seems fine, it’s just whenever it has to transcode (like with ASS subtitles), it always transcodes audio to mp3 even formats that can play on the shield fine (like AAC, flac). The only way to avoid it I’ve found is to disable subtitle burn in so everything direct plays, but then you lose subtitle styles.

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